Mythruna

So, I think I have whipped the e-commerce plug-in that I'll be using into shape tonight.  Things went much better than I had anticipated through a slight shift in my approach... and I think I like this new way even better.

Old approach: have specific "levels" that you could purchase like an item in the store.
Problem: it becomes tricky to let someone spend $5 today and another $5 tomorrow if they decide to go up to the $10 level.  It seemed like the most straight forward way at the time, though.

New approach: generously interested folks can purchase whatever amount they want in increments of $5, $10, $25, etc. and the site will show them what their current "donation level" is.  Different levels give different rewards similar to what I described in a different thread.

In my test site, I've even been able to make it so that you can have a nice status page that shows only those rewards that apply to your current level.  It all went together very smoothly and I didn't even have to directly hack the Wordpress or WooCommerce code as I was able to do it entirely as a separate plug-in.  (Wordpress is a very well designed system internally... I'm very impressed.)

Woot!

I think sometime tomorrow I will finalize (at least for now) what the rewards will be at different levels and then run my web site language by a lawyer just in case.  I'll probably need at least a basic "Terms of Service" anyway.

Expect me to timidly test the waters with an actual roll-out shortly thereafter.

Your approach is interesting and it smell like a "free to play" or "Pay as much as you can" method. The incremental method by 5$ is also interesting because it avoids very low donations (The last Humble Indie Bundle had some 1 cents payments...It's highly disrespectful for the team who made games).

Depending on what will become Mythruna, a medium price around 20$ could be fine for a game with quest, infinite world, cool gfx, etc... But personally, I'm ready to pay more if the game became a serious alternative to Minecraft (even if I know it will become a different game).

But maybe, after, you could sell it with Desura/Gamersgate or ... steam ! Think about 3079 for example...

Good luck with this game Paul !

Gfamad

Thanks.  Ultimately the plan is for "pay to play" but I will wait until alpha which is some ways off.  There is another thread here where I go into more details on my thoughts because someone asked the question:
http://mythruna.com/forum/index.php?topic=515.0

I'm torn on things like Desura.  Mythruna will have its own accounts and stuff tied into its own store.  That is ultimately the point of this exercise.  If the modding community takes off then I will even let users sell their content in a Mythruna app store.

It's very hard to work something like that when your accounts are tied up on someone else's site and payment wall.

...but I may have said most of that already in that other thread.  I can't remember for sure. :)

I'm pretty sure you don't plan to, but if you make it into a monthly subscription dealie, I'll never forgive you.  :P

Hahah... me either.  I don't plan to charge subscriptions for Mythruna.

If a particular sever admin has a particularly cool server and wants to make users pay a subscription then that is up to them.

Here is the draft of the "official" donation levels description page:
http://mythruna.com/wordpress/?page_id=146

I think I'm going to post separately about it also.